The Twenty Minute VC

Celtics Owner Steve Pagliuca: What Went Wrong with the Chelsea FC Acquisition | 20VC #976

Steve Pagliuca is a Senior Advisor at Bain Capital, the firm he joined in 1982 and as a Managing Director of Bain Capital, he has helped build the firm into one of the world’s leading investment companies with over $160 billion in assets under management. Steve is also a Managing Partner and Co-Owner of the World Championship Boston Celtics Basketball franchise. Steve is also co-owner and co-chairman of the Serie A professional football club, Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio. If that was not enough, Steve currently, serves on the Board of Directors of Gartner, Coherent, Virgin Voyages, and Deltatre. Huge thanks to Moshe @ Shrug Capital for making the intro. ------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 Steve’s Arrival to Duke 2:00 Did you always know you would be a success? 4:35 Steve’s Big Break 6:32 Lessons from Steve’s Mentors 8:44 How to Retain Humility 10:14 Downside Protectionist Mindset 12:15 What does “high performance” mean to you? 13:00 Steve’s Investing Style 13:58 Full Trust vs No Trust 14:55 Recession Predictions 17:48 Steve’s Biggest Win/Loss 25:02 3 Reasons Bain is Successful 28:11 Biggest Challenge in Scaling to $160B AUM 31:47 Disagree and Commit 32:31 Building Business vs Building Sports Teams 36:15 Dealing with Media Scrutiny 37:58 Why Money from the US is Pouring into European Sports 41:32 Will we see $50B football clubs? 43:03 Steve’s Plan to Buy Chelsea FC 46:22 Hardest Part About Owning a Sports Team 48:00 Steve’s Risk Mindset 49:30 Secret to a Happy Marriage 50:17 Steve’s Favorite Book 51:04 2023 Macro Predictions 51:47 Is Gen-Z entitled? 55:28 What do you know now that you wish you’d known earlier? 55:54 What do you look for in emerging managers? 56:32 Steve’s 5-Year Plan -------------------------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Steve Pagliuca We Discuss: 1.) From Duffel Bags at Duke to Buying Sports Teams: How Steve went from having a single duffel bag arriving at Duke University to entering the world of private equity with the founding of Bain’s PE funds? Did Steve always know he would be successful? What does Steve think about the importance between luck and timing? How did Steve’s mother impact how he approaches parenting and self-belief with his children? 2.) Buying Sports Teams: Not So Different to Companies: When buying and running a sports team, what is the same, and what is different from buying and running a company? What is Steve’s biggest advice to new owners of sports teams? What are the single biggest mistakes sports team owners make when they buy a team? What happened with the Chelsea bid? Why did Steve lose? How did debt change the deal? 3.) The Future of Sports Ownership: Why does Steve believe we have seen a massive rise in American and private equity buyers of both global sports teams but also European sports teams? How has “new media” changed the inherent value that can be placed on a team? Why does it change the value? Which forms of “new media” are most important? How much further can the value of these sports teams increase? Does this massive increase in the price and assets of certain clubs not lead to a massive inequality in sports? What can be done to prevent this imbalance? 4.) Steve Pagliuca: The Person and Capital Allocator: What is the single best investment advice Steve has ever received? How does Steve think about his relationship to wealth today? How has it changed over time? What does it take to have an amazing marriage and be at the top of your profession? What were 1-2 elements that made Bain able to scale to the proportions of AUM that they have done? What would he have done differently? ----------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Steve Pagliuca on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevePagliuca Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vc_reels Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com --------------------------------- #StevePagliuca #BostonCeltics #BainCapital #harrystebbings #20vc #privateequity

Steve PagliucaguestHarry Stebbingshost

Feb 10, 202358mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Celtics Owner Steve Pagliuca On Discipline, Sports, and Sensible Risk

Steve Pagliuca traces his journey from modest beginnings and a green duffel bag at Duke to leading Bain Capital and owning elite sports franchises like the Boston Celtics and Atalanta. He emphasizes mentorship, humility, and a depression-era mindset around safety, even as he makes bold investments in sports, technology, and biotech. Pagliuca explains Bain’s fact-based, people-centric investing style, how discipline and culture enabled Bain’s global scale, and why growth plus clear paths to profitability matter more than hype. He also dissects the globalization and financialization of sports, why his Chelsea FC bid fell short, and how he thinks about risk, family, and legacy in the later stages of his career.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Great mentors are critical but must be both candid and non-judgmental.

Pagliuca credits his Bain mentors for being “critical but not judgmental,” offering direct feedback while clearly rooting for his success; he replicates this with his own mentees and teams.

High performance means going beyond the brief and obsessing over details.

His best teams at Bain and the Celtics deliver more than asked—if you request two slides, they bring five—and rigorously dig into every detail, from analysis to execution.

Successful investing balances deep, fact-based analysis with people judgment.

Bain’s ethos is to do exhaustive due diligence—markets, models, customer research—then equally weigh the integrity, passion, and capability of the people running the business.

Growth still drives value, but must be paired with a credible path to profit.

He argues that the market is rightly moving away from “lose money forever” models; investors now demand both long-term growth and evidence the product earns real, sustainable margins.

Culture and discipline are what allow a firm to scale without losing its edge.

Bain maintained performance while reaching ~$160B AUM by keeping a central IC on every deal, fostering open dissent, and refusing to become an ‘asset gatherer’ focused only on deployment.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

All the world's a stage. People judge you by how you treat other people.

— Steve Pagliuca (quoting mentor Harry Strachan)

The only thing worse than losing a deal is doing a bad deal.

— Steve Pagliuca

You can’t be successful in this business without an ego, but I grew up in a family that thought the Depression was always just around the corner.

— Steve Pagliuca

There are not that many unicorns that will be created. Ninety percent of businesses cannot follow the ‘lose money forever’ model.

— Steve Pagliuca

Ubuntu means you are only here because other people have helped you get there, and so you need to help other people to get there.

— Steve Pagliuca

Early life, family influence, and confidence buildingMentorship, feedback style, and leadership philosophyInvesting framework: facts vs. people, growth vs. profitabilityBain Capital’s culture, global scaling, and investment committee dynamicsCycles of exuberance in venture/PE and the current market resetSports ownership: Celtics, Atalanta, globalization of sports, and Chelsea bidRisk appetite evolution, biotech/AI bets, and long-term legacy

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